If the political buzz among your friends is all the same, you need to make more friends

Friday

May 17, 2013 at 5:14 PM

One morning back in 1977, I was having coffee with a certain prominent public official (an appointee, not a politician) whose judgment in most matters I usually respected.

Our conversation eventually turned to an upcoming local election, and this guy said he was pretty sure that Candidate A would easily defeat Candidate B. He based this prediction, he said, on the opinions he had heard from virtually all of his friends.

My own sense of the situation was that the election likely would be closer than this other guy thought, but I didn’t say so. This was an older gentleman, ...

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Pat Cunningham

One morning back in 1977, I was having coffee with a certain prominent public official (an appointee, not a politician) whose judgment in most matters I usually respected.

Our conversation eventually turned to an upcoming local election, and this guy said he was pretty sure that Candidate A would easily defeat Candidate B. He based this prediction, he said, on the opinions he had heard from virtually all of his friends.

My own sense of the situation was that the election likely would be closer than this other guy thought, but I didn’t say so. This was an older gentleman, ...